Sarah Huckabee Sanders rose to national prominence in part during her time at the lectern as White House press secretary, but the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for the Arkansas governor is undergoing scrutiny and prompting claims that records about it have been altered.

A legislative panel next week will take up a lawmaker’s request for an audit to review the purchase of the lectern, which was bought in June for $19,029.25 with a state credit card. The Arkansas Republican Party reimbursed the state last month for the wood-paneled and blue lectern, which the state received in August.

“From my experience, where we’re at with this particular thing is we need to allow legislative audit go in,” Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey, who requested the audit, said. “Everyone knows them, they do their work, they’re very thorough and then they produce a detailed report that comes to the Legislature through an open committee.”

    • downpunxx@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      I know a thing or two about fancy lecterns and that one couldn’t cost more than 2 grand on a good day except if it was being used to cover up corruption and graft in the Humunculoid Huckabee Arkansas state government

      • MightBeAlpharius@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know anything about fancy lecterns, but looking at the Amazon link someone posted, I can certainly recognize particleboard with a wood-grain veneer on it… Honestly, $2k feels expensive for that, I’d say it should be about $500 at Ikea.

        • bluGill@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          If Ikea made this it would be a lot less than $500. However there isn’t enough demand for Ikea to make one. With both this and Ikea you are paying for both materials and all the jigs needed to get the particle board cut to the correct size - there is a lot of engineering costs in that, and they have much less sales to spread those costs over.

    • bluGill@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      This one isn’t that fancy though. I’ve seen some hand carved that are clearly more than that, but this doesn’t those expensive features.